This invention relates to the garment field, and more particularly, to a method of applying a print design to standard hook and loop fabric (for example, Velcro.RTM.), while simultaneously attaching the hook and loop fabric to an underlying fabric or garment.
Hook and loop fabrics are old in the art. Fabric and garments having other hook and loop fabric attached thereto is also old in the art.
Garments, such as shirts, sweatshirts, pants and hats, have long since been printed with ornamental designs. Methods of printing fabric which are known in the art include, among others, screenprinting, heat transfer printing and belt printing.
In its basic form, screenprinting consists of the alternating application of laying different screens over the same area of an underlying fabric or garment and the application of different colored printing material (inks, paints, etc.) applied with pressure over each screen. Each of the screens has a print element or portion of the overall design to be placed onto the fabric or garment. When the full set of screens (one or more screens), and their different colors, have been completely applied to the fabric or garment, a complete underlying design can be seen on the fabric or garment.
Belt printing uses substantially the same steps as screenprinting, but with the added mechanization of the cut fabric or garment proceeding along on a conveyor belt to different stations of screenprinting presses.
Heat transfer printing consists of the taking of an applique (which is transfer paper having a design printed thereon and treated with a heat and pressure sensitive adhesive on the back thereof), and transferring the design element of the applique onto a fabric or garment. The applique is transferred to the fabric or garment by applying the appropriate heat and pressure, for an appropriate period of time, thereby fusing the applique to the fabric or garment so that the ornamental design is visible on the outside of the fabric or garment.
It became popular to further adorn fabrics and garments with hook and loop fabric pieces, such as Velcro.RTM., so that removable ornamental pieces, such as figures of people or animals or writing, could be removably attached to interact with the printed-on design. It was a disadvantage of these types of systems that the hook and loop fabric pieces, onto which the detachable ornamental pieces could be placed, and which were interspersed around the fabric or garment, did not also contain any design features to allow them to blend into the surrounding or background picture. For example, if the system involved was a blue sky which incorporated different positions for a detachable element such as the sun, any position on which to place the sun would need to have a piece of the hook and loop fabric adhered or stitched over a part of the blue sky background. The hook and loop fabric would not necessarily be the same color as the blue sky background, and therefore, when no sun element was affixed to a particular hook and loop piece, that piece would be visible and disrupt the beauty of the underlying picture, it would also not be the same texture of the background picture.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a method of printing the hook and loop fabric itself with the ornamental background design while maintaining the integrity of the hook and loop structure, so that removable ornamental elements could be affixed onto the design in any location to interact with that design.
Since the hook and loop fabric is different than the underlying fabric of the garment (usually cotton, polyester, a cotton-polyester blend or any other type of natural or synthetic fabric), it is also a disadvantage to stitch a hook and loop fabric to the underlying fabric or garment since different shrinkage coefficients exist for the two fabrics and the hook and loop fabric would ultimately crumple up or become detached from the garment during repeated wash cycles. Accordingly, it would also be advantageous to provide a method of resolving this attachment problem, while also enabling the hook and loop fabric to be printed.